Good News, Bad News - Thursday 2 April 2009

A Week on Week comparison for channel Ten obviously sees ten down without the aid of AFL footy but away from that schedule upheaval Ten has some good news and some bad news...

The Good News
Law & Order SVU got the better of Nine's 20 to 01 with probably its biggest audience of the season, helped along by (of all things) Bondi Vet!

Dr Chris Brown is finally over the million mark and no doubt a second season confirmation is only a formality.

For a show which is not a typical Ten format (and has therefore struggled for attention) it has grown consistently each week. Last year it seemed like the whole "Bondi" franchise would be dead on the tarmac with the abject failure of Bondi Rescue Bali, but the success here must surely be encouraging someone to hunt for the next Bondi reality skein, Crime & Investigation channel looked like they were getting in on the act last Thursday with The Bondi Gay Murders, but that was just a one-off CIA ep!

The Bad News
Oh Yeah - the disruption (two pre-emptions for AFL matches so far this season) has not been a good thing for Life on Mars which this week finished its run in the US, not sure if this show will see the other side of easter at 9.30 - we may be looking at a 10.30 move.

Some are even suggesting a Friday night swap with Medium (Personally I would swap out the male-skewing Law & Order to take it away from male-skewing sports), other have reasonably pointed out that Ten has not been so quick on the trigger this year - and that is true - but remember they still moved Dexter out of prime time and in a few weeks Guerilla Gardeners (which has been treading water at 700k) is moving to 6pm Sundays (replacing a low-rating Simpsons rerun) so even though Ten is more patient this year, I still think Life on Mars may see out its run in a different slot.

Bumper Harvest - Wednesday 1 April 2009

Another instalment in what is becoming a topsy turvey week – this time it was Nine’s turn to shine.

With their second reality series bowing out in as many weeks Farmer Wants a Wife finally got one over Seven’s Talent show and dominated the night, Even the Mentalist did well, maintaining his aud from the previous week despite screening an hour later.

Everything else on Nine’s rivals took a hit with House and Life both down as well as Seven’s entire lineup finding itself in the red.

The only question left to ask is how fast can Nine come up with a new crop of country bachelors?

Ten’s Guerrilla Gardeners continues to limp along, Ten proved this week that they can pull of a good Monday night share, and their Sundays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are in order. Saturdays continue to be an issue north of the Mexican border (err Murray River) and Fridays are passable I suppose but it seems to me that this Gardening show is the only thing standing between Ten and a decent slice of the Wednesday night pie.

Who knows? Perhaps with no farmers to compete against next week may see these trowel wielding activists jump up in the ratings, certainly perseverance is paying off for ten’s other light factual skeins but if Easter rolls by with no improvement, then I’d suggest a quick trip to the compost heap for this show.

Wednesday 25 March 2009

Nothing major happening last night with most shows maintaining from last week

Ten seems to be having the hardest time on Wednesdays with House slipping by 43,000 viewers and the Gardening show falling behind The New Inventors on ABC1 getting mired on fourth place.

Beyond the Darklands improved week on week by 32,000 no doubt aided by its much more familiar subject matter. Nine split their night in order to get the Melbourne Footy Show out of the road of Ten's AFL match tonight but overall the change made no appreciable difference to their night.

On what was a pretty stable night a rerun of Two and a Half Men recorded the biggest week on week increase with an extra 156,000 viewers tuning in.

Advertising on the ABC - Wednesday 19 March 2009

Well for a while myself and others in the blogosphere have been shouting at Ten to move House back to 9pm where it saw some early success this season clear of the ABC’s Spicks & Specks, well as much as I hate to admit it – moving it won’t do anything now.

ABC has filled the 9pm timeslot with the equally successful Gruen Transfer a sharp, funny show about advertising and how it works, which ironically can probably only be made on a commercial free pubcaster like the ABC. Both Shows held over 1.1 million viewers for the hour bettered only by Criminal Minds which stands at the top of Wednesday’s growing procedural pile.

Guerrilla Gardeners seems to be growing very slowly on people and had the night’s biggest lift with an additional 80,000 people watching week on week, accordingly an extra 79,000 people saw House, while The Mentalist lost 80,000 viewers and Criminal Minds lost 94,000 week on week, I guess that’s an actual Gruen transfer at work.

Less amusing is the situation with Lost which dropped back again by an alarming 80,000 viewers, the series itself is perhaps better than ever, although firmly now in the realm of science fiction rather than the action drama it masqueraded as in it’s first 3 seasons.

Even given the general antipathy towards Science Fiction in this country I cannot explain the low numbers, the show is airing only 3 weeks after the states (surely not worth wasting your broadbrand limit on) the only thing I can figure is that people are recording it to watch later, I myself watch + record the show but I do pass it along to my neighbour the next day, is it possible that this show is being taped (given the attention one needs to pay whilst watching) rather than watched live, or have Australian’s given up on the mystery?

The Truth about Vets and Plants - Thursday 12 March 2009

Nine stormed in with a huge audience for their Adults Only 20 to 01 which seems to be a better fit with The Footy Show than with cop shows. The Return of the Footy Show also garnered a healthy aud as it always does but look for it to fall away in the coming weeks as the season settles in.

Thursdays seem to be one of The Biggest Loser’s better nights, improving by 50,000 viewers week on week as did Bondi Vet though its still a long way from being considered a success.

The truth is with the Vet show and the Gardening show these are not the kind of programs that people expect to find on Ten, this is mainstream channel Seven and Nine stuff through and through, mostly watched by people who haven’t retuned their set since 1961, they just aren’t watching Ten to begin with.

Speaking of old, Ten’s trip to the 70s is really starting to fall away, although it added 20,000 viewers week on week it’s still lagging behind Private Practice which itself must be waiting for one of those 10.30 slots to become available.

A House built on eroding foundations - Wednesday 11 March 2009

Another night of week on week drops across the board though nowhere near as drastic as Tuesday. Today Tonight posted the biggest loss of 148k week on week, while its rival A Current Affair gained 69,000 viewers from last week, Neighbours however was down 73,000 so overall viewing was down.

Both eps of Cold Case were down week on week but still respectable, Gangs of Oz’s final instalment kept above 1 million declining by 48,000 viewers from last week, conversely Lost, which has been on the slide, lifted by 36,000 viewers.

The 8.30 slot seems to have settled somewhat with Criminal Minds boasting a comfortable lead over the competition, the (remarkably less exciting) procedural The Mentalist has grown back to late 2008 levels, no where near its Sunday episodes but on par with its Wednesday outings last year and helping Nine to a strong second place on the night.

Over on Ten, House has incredibly stabilised, and although a 4th placing at 8.30 is not ideal, 900k against two other (newer) first run US dramas is passable.

Less inspiring is the lacklustre performance of its lead-in Guerrilla Gardeners which has slipped below the 700k mark, Ten says they’re going to stick with it but I cannot see the point, on one hand it’s Thursday counterpart Bondi Vet posts less than spectacular numbers, but those numbers are stable and do not hamper its lead in, the gardening show, on the other hand, is declining from an awfully low base (from which that vet’s numbers look like lofty heights) this show may be bound for the midday Saturday death slot! (Previously occupied by such Ten luminaries as Celebrity Dog School and Teen Fat Camp) maybe Ten should do a straight swap with current occupant Star Wars: The Clone Wars, that show is a fine way to pass 30 minutes!

Stuff Gardening, get back to the House! Wednesday 4 March 2008

Last night Nine saw improvement in all their skeins from 7.30 to 11.30 with Cold Case within striking distance of Seven’s soon to be gone Gangs of Oz and the 10.30 rerun dominating the timeslot.

Week on week the 9.30 Cold Case lifted 218,000 people, the week’s biggest gain, also performing well Farmer Wants a Wife added 67k, The Mentalist added 119k and the 10.30 Cold Case rerun added 106k

Seven suffered the biggest losses with Gangs of Oz shedding 101,000 viewers, still it scraped through to a timeslot win. Lost is floundering at 10.30 coming after an incompatible lead in it sunk a further 84,000 viewers to 380,000 which surely constitutes a series low for a new episode.

House lifted for Ten but still lost out to Spicks and Specks, while Life gained 105,000 viewers week on week but only managed a distant third in its timeslot for total viewers.

Interestingly The Biggest Loser and House seem to have similar numbers watching then in between 200,000 viewers disappear at the onset of Guerrilla Gardeners – it interesting to note that city by city the biggest lead in losses are in Melbourne and Adelaide the two cities with currently the harshest water restrictions where gardening is probably the furthest thing from anyone’s mind. Still at 700k against tough competition I see Ten toughing it out for a few more weeks yet but if it stays under 800,000 after Nine’s Agricultural show disappears then my tip is for a quick return from Rules of Engagement which has just returned in the US.

9pm - Wednesday 25 February 2009

Lets look at the week on week progress of some series

Seven had some minor losses with Australia’s Got Talent shedding 49,000 viewers and Gangs of Oz taking out 27,000 but overall they were on par with the previous week.

Nine made some good gains particularly with News up by 119,000 viewers, as Kuttyswood pointed out on this blog yesterday the Queensland Election is proving a boost to Nine’s news ratings in Brisbane as they have more experience covering politics than Seven whose political coverage remains disappointingly lightweight. Since the bushfires in Victoria Nine News also seems to have won back some ground in Melbourne – the other state capitals however, remain largely indifferent to Nine News.

ACA also boosted by 154,000 viewers, the Two and a Half Men rerun took an extra 86,000 as a result and Farmer Wants a Wife went up by 132,000 week on week.

The Mentalist broke the magic mill going up 83,000 viewers and although stuck in second place Cold Case took the paint of Life over on ten with 155,000 viewers dumping LA for Philadelphia at 9.30

Over on Ten their early evening lifted nicely with The Simpsons up 63,000, Neighbours up 93,000 and The Biggest Loser up 92,000 week on week – but with Guerrilla Gardeners only able to add 24,000 viewers – the writing may be on the wall – even more distressing is that all those gains were in Melbourne, where it still posted under 200,000 viewers – unacceptable in Melbourne for a 8pm show.

Not sure whether the 8.30 timeslot or its 8pm lead-in is hurting House but neither is helping one iota, the sad irony for channel ten can be seen in the ABC’s figures – at 8.30 there’s over a million people watching Spicks & Specks and at 9pm 618,000 of them change the channel looking for something else to watch! All they have as an alternative of free to air is 3 American dramas half-way through the hour – c’mon Ten take advantage – move it back to 9pm.

Speaking of the ABC – what is it with their Wednesday nights becoming the cable comedy repurposing night? I’m not sure of the appeal of Chandon Pictures, it’s on a channel that even the bulk of Cable subscribers probably don’t get, it seems to be a very insider baseball premise and Aunty can only rustle up 431,000 people at 9pm to have a look? ABC don’t care about ratings – but if they do care about exposing good programs then they are wasting one of their best timeslots on a turkey.

Anyone for gardening? Anyone?? Wednesday 18 February 2009

Hmmm – lets get the good news out of the way first shall we – Seven can be pleased Talent, Criminal Minds, Gangs of Oz and Lost all lifted Week on Week – an impressive result.

Right that’s taken care of! Now what about channel nine…

Well… The Mentalist improved – slightly up from 929,000 to 955,000 and Flashpoint weakened from 670,000 to 632,000 but these seem to be the audiences these two programs are stuck with which is kind of sad given where they started – if only Nine had learned to keep them in the same timeslot from go to woah.

But what of Ten? For the last two weeks House had been airing at 9pm instead of the usual 8.30 and for those two weeks the show had posted figures over the million mark – now that it moved back to 8.30 the show sunk back to it’s late 2008 standard – so why?

Hmmm it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they’ve lost the viewers who are watching Spicks and Specks on ABC1, in fact the irony is they probably didn’t even really lose them – those people probably record the show to watch later – they have the technology (not that OzTAM would know!).

Think about it for a second – you, humble viewer, like two shows on at the same time – one is a drama, the other a piece of fluff – which one are you going to commit to a tape? (or your DVR or whatever) Which one might you want to watch again sometime down the track – a show so disposable it could be done on radio? Or a multi-million dollar dramatic serial – I know which one I would chose – and so do about 300,000 others who have vanished from House’s audience.

David Mott (or whoever holds the cards there now) do yourself a favour and get this show back to 9pm.

Interestingly Life held almost all of the House lead-in and beat Flashpoint at 9.30 which is good for them, but like Flashpoint and the Mentalist this show seems to have found it’s level. Back when house got 1.24 million viewers (two weeks ago) Life still only managed 850k, which is also why its easier to justify this show at 10pm than at 9.30.

Anyway, that’s not even the worst thing to happen to Ten last night – their new series Guerilla Gardeners launched and then skidded across the tarmac crashing horribly into fourth place with a horrendous 645,000 viewers watching.

Now to be fair this show had three strikes against it

1) Its lead in – The Biggest Loser – was already in fourth spot with a lower than usual audience
2) Its on Ten, a network not regarded for its gardening programs, a net that hasn’t had a successful lifestyle format since the cancellation of Healthy Wealthy & Wise in 1998.
3) Promotion for the show was obtuse at best and at worst non-existant, I’m across more TV than most but I didn’t have a good picture of what the show was about until Tuesday just gone when I read a TV Tonight article – given the bulk of the population (esp those people meter folk) probably don’t follow TV industry news, then they would be in the dark about it.

This is a unique problem for Ten – if such a show debuted on Seven or Nine it would probably receive a decent sampling, but Ten is different – their primary audience is under 39 – gardening is not a popular pasttime with this group, in fact if I am representative of this age group then gardening is a chore confined to weeding and mowing the lawn (what there is of it).

When you look at Ten’s big program launches of the past 10 years you that the common demoninator is a concept that stands out to young people – young people are Ten’s core audience – the older viewers usually discover Ten shows later down the track.

Now this show does have an element that should appeal, namely that these gardeners are borderline criminals carrying out there renovations without the permission of councils or owners or anyone, that’s interesting – but then I only knew that about a day ago.

Ten might cross their fingers and hope for good word of mouth, but I’m not sure its gonna happen – we could be looking at the first casualty of the season.

Primetime Preview: Wednesdays

7.30 - 8.30
Australia's Got Talent vs Farmer Wants a Wife vs The Biggest Loser/Guerilla Gardeners

Hmmm, clearly no-one was happy with their Wednesday performance last year as all this stuff is new to the timeslot, also no-one thought to include comedy in the slot as Two and a Half Men worked marvellously for Nine on Wednesday nights last year.

The first few weeks will see an extra installment of So You Think You Can Dance over on Ten before it is replaced by a gardening show (unusual for Ten) which is an unknown quantity.

The Hot Tip...
I don't expect Got Talent to do anything special here, Red Symons is good value but the presence of Danni Minogue and Tom Burlinson keeps it from being entertaining - frankly on the strength of it's previous seasons and Nine's summer campaign I'd tip Farmer wants a Wife as the winner of this slot. Only problem is do they have more than six weeks in the can?


8.30 - 9.30
Criminal Minds vs The Mentalist vs House
For the first few weeks House will be pushed back to 9pm, this may advantage it over the other shows in the slot as it won't have to directly face the ABC's Spicks and Specks - a perrenial contender in this slot.

Out of the commercial channels, Criminal Minds has The Mentalists' measure and I expect that to continue

The Hot Tip...
Criminal Minds still the timeslot winner, though a lot will depend on whether Ten's extended Dance sessions act as effective spoilers in the early weeks and deliver an aud to House - I'm not holding my breath...


9.30 - 10.30
Gangs of Oz vs Flashpoint vs Life
It's hard to know what Nine are thinking here, Flashpoint has been doing reasonably well in an 8.30 slot but they have had trouble pinning down a night with all these sneak peeks - now they pull a random night out of their collective arses and it's Wednesday at 9.30??? Whatever.

I predict some initial interest in Gangs of Oz (the seven factual publicity machine is a loud beast) but I wonder exactly how many criminal gangs are out there for them to profile.

The Hot Tip
After an initial interest for Gangs of Oz, Flashpoint will take over the slot, I don't see Life troubling either 7 or 9, which is unfortunate because it is one of the best shows on TV.